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2024-2025 Leeds League Premiership Season

28 February 2025

2024-2025 Leeds League Premiership Season

Vikings played their second consecutive season in the Premiership with partially a new look team. With several core players moving away (Niall Murphy, Kevin Denamganai) and Jamie Butler (2024 MVP) switching to local rivals Jorvik Warriors, Ali Lyons taking a break and Tom Marks (2024 DPOY) not available for Leeds League, the Vikings started with a new look.


4 players from York University (Dimitris Armelinos, Oliver Barlow, Ross Paterson and David Joseph) as well as Pat Mackle and rookie Sam Thornhill (half way through the season) joined the team.


With the new younger line up joining veterans Andy Capes, Adam Wright, Jonny Copley and Darren Taylor the season started out strong and the team got their first two wins against Yorkshire Wizards and Rawthorpe Cobras. Following the two initial successful games, Vikings lost their first game against Bradford Maroons, a team that Vikings notoriously struggle to beat. The team then travelled to Deighton Ryders to play a team that draws from their national league team. Pat Mackle, who had led the team in scoring for the first three games, came down with a serious shoulder injury. Lloyd Bickerstaffe, a team 2 player, who regularly plays up also had a serious knee injury in the game. Both players left the game before half time. After their 2nd loss of the season, the news from the injuries was not great, with both players out for the season.

Sam Thornhill stepped up to cover some of the gaps, but with the uni players also struggling to commit consistently, several Team 2 players had to regularly play up. Furthermore, Andy Capes had to rest his elbow (tendinitis) missing several games and Coach (and player) Darren Taylor also ended up being out for the season due to a hernia.

The subsequent games against Deighton Ryders, Leeds Demons and Mandela Warriors featured a mix of Team 1 and 2 players leading to some big losses.

The final game of 2024 finally consisting of majority Team 1 players put an end to the losing streak with a win against Horsforth Hustlers.

However, with the injuries and players struggling to commit to games, the team hobbled through the rest of the season, even having to forfeit a couple of games. To add to the injury bug, Robert Wright, who joined towards the end of the season only played 1 game before getting injured.

The Vikings finished at the bottom of the table with a 3 - 11 record and did not participate in the play offs.


Despite the injuries a number of players stepped up and got the opportunity to play in the Premiership.





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